


The Giraffe

by MyBloodyUnicorn



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Angst and Feels, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:17:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyBloodyUnicorn/pseuds/MyBloodyUnicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Detective John Kennex came to own a certain toy giraffe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Giraffe

On their third date, he takes her to his favorite noodle shop, the one in the sketchy part of the city and once she tastes the food, she laughs and kisses him.

“I was wrong,” she says. “These _are_ worth possibly getting stabbed for.”

Her hand rests comfortably on the inside of his thigh. He tries to think of how to convince her to come home with him that night. She lets him drive her home. They kiss on her doorstep and she grips him by the hips, pressing against him, but she doesn’t ask him to come inside.

He digs into her records at the station the next morning. Just some trivial motor vehicle citations, nothing major to hide—then he sees it, buried in her public records.

> **CHILDREN: Oliver**
> 
> **DOB: 02/17/2041**

_A kid?_ he thinks. He deletes her parking tickets then erases his search history. _Why didn’t she just say so?_

He’s purposely early for their next date and she invites him in. While she’s apologizing for the mess, he sees a small, serious face peeping out around a door. She sighs.

“John, this is my son, Oliver,” she says, ushering the boy into the room.

“It’s nice to meet you,” John says, bending down to the boy. He’s not sure what else to do. Shake the kid’s hand? Pat him on the head? Oliver disappears behind his mother’s legs.

“Sorry,” she says. “He’s very shy.” She sweeps him up in her arms as she answers the door for the babysitter, handing him off to the older woman. “Be good,” she tells him as they leave. The boy waves. John waves back.

He asks a few polite questions over dinner, not wanting to press her too hard for details. Oliver is almost 4. His dad is not in the picture. She was waiting for the right moment to tell John about him.

“Lots of men suddenly lose interest when they hear you have a kid,” she says, watching the wine swirl in her glass. He covers her hand with his own. She takes him home with her that night.

The next morning, he tries to slip away while she’s still asleep. In the living room, he finds the television on and hears the scrape of something being dragged across the floor. Oliver teeters on a kitchen chair, reaching into the cabinets.

“Hey…” John says. “Hey, buddy. What are you after?”

Oliver shrinks away, points into the open cupboard.

“You… want my help?” asks John. He peers into the cabinet and sees a row of cereal boxes on the top shelf, out of Oliver’s reach. He puts a finger on one. “This?” he asks. Oliver shakes his head. John points again. No luck.  “Not that one either?” John says. “How about you just… show me which one.”

Oliver lifts his arms to be picked up and John is surprised by how heavy his little body is. He balances the boy on his hip and takes down the box of cereal he indicates. He gets a bowl and a spoon and pours the cereal and milk for Oliver. The weight of the boy is solid and reassuring in his arms and he’s strangely reluctant to put him back down again.  

“Thank you,” Oliver says, carefully clutching the bowl as he walks away. He tries to say goodbye but Oliver is too absorbed in watching television to see him go.

John goes home, showers, tries to decide which leftovers in the fridge are still edible. His phone chirps.

_> > Ollie says you let him eat the sugary cereal this morning._

His thumbs hover over the screen, not sure how to reply. _Sorry_ , he types, _was that not OK?_  

_> > It’s ok, next time just swap in the healthy stuff when he’s not looking._

John smiles a little, his eye skipping back to read _next time_ again.

 _Will do_ , he sends back.

The three of them go out together, to the zoo. Oliver’s enthusiasm spills over to John, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the next exhibit when he feels John is lingering too long at any one spot. Oliver wants to know what animal John likes best, a decision John hasn’t had to make in probably thirty years. He stalls for moment, then deflects the question by asking Oliver what his favorite animal is.

“A _giraffe_?” John says, hoping he sounds suitably astonished. “That’s _my_ favorite, too.” Oliver gasps and wraps his arms around John’s leg, squeezing him before running ahead toward the next animal.

“Mama! John!” he calls out. “This way!”

They round the corner and a minature African savannah opens out before them. Two giraffes stroll about, stripping leaves from the tall trees. Oliver pleads with his mother to buy a handful of treats to feed to the giraffes and after some negotiation, she gives in. John hoists Oliver onto his shoulders and as they climb up to the feeding platform, the giraffes amble over to meet them. Oliver’s mother carefully instructs him in how to feed the giraffes: keep still, hold your hand out flat.

The giraffe dips its head toward Oliver and its long inky tongue snakes out to retrieve the food. Oliver shrieks with horror while the giraffe stands placidly waiting for more. In his terror, Oliver kicks and squirms so hard, John’s almost afraid he’ll drop him but he pulls the boy off his shoulders and holds him close to his chest.

“It’s okay,” John says. “It’s okay, buddy. Look… the giraffe isn’t going to hurt you. Watch, watch me do it.”

He holds his hand up to the giraffe who swipes away the offered treat with its slimy black tongue. Oliver peeks out, recoiling when the giraffe gets too close. John does it again, until the little basket of treats is empty, hoping he’s assured the little boy there is nothing to be afraid of.

Oliver falls asleep on the ride home and John carries him into the house. His mother slips off his tiny sneakers, offers to take him off John’s hands. John insists he can do it and takes the boy to his room. He pulls back the blankets back to reveal cartoon character sheets on the bed, and he makes a mental note to ask Oliver who’s pictured there. He sits on the edge of the bed and eases the boy into it, his back aching from carrying him all day. He pulls the blankets up to Oliver's chin and watches him sleep for a minute, gently passing a hand over the boy's dark hair.

His mother stands in the doorway. “You did great today,” she whispers, closing the door. She takes John’s hand and leads him toward her bedroom.

“Really?” he asks.

She nods. “Really.”

John spends more and more time at their place, coming home to dinner with them, staying the night more often than not. John discovers he likes to get down on the floor to play with Oliver, whose favorite game is to take all the animaltronics in his collection and set them up in a zoo. He gives John the honor of tapping each animal’s tiny head to bring it to life, watching as they gallop across the floor.

Of the three of them, Oliver is the first to tell John he loves him, in a drawing filled with animals, elephants and monkeys flocking around the crayoned words: _I love you._ When Oliver presents the picture to him, John gets on his knees to address the boy, who hugs him around the neck.

“I love you too, buddy,” he says, his voice thick.

Before John knows it, six months have gone by. He tells her he wants them all to really live together, to move into his place. It’s bigger than her apartment and the schools are better, a fact he looks up for himself late one night, hoping to build a case to convince her. At first, she says it’s too soon. Yes, she says, she loves him but it’s just too soon to move in together.

He tries again two months later and she says she wouldn’t feel right about uprooting Oliver. _This apartment is the only home he’s ever known_ , she says. John offers to move in here with them but when she says _I’ll think about it_ , John realizes that's what she tells Oliver when she doesn’t want to tell him no.

Disagreements turn into arguments which turn into flat-out fights. One afternoon, John buys Oliver the newest animaltronic, a giraffe he’s been clamoring for, and she accuses him of spoiling the boy. He insists he isn’t, it’s just one toy. _Don’t tell me how to raise my son,_ she snaps and John feels sucker punched.

They make up a few days later when she sends Oliver to her mother’s for the weekend. They have exhilarating, unrestrained sex but something about it feels desperate to John, too much like a last hurrah. Before the weekend is over, he tries again, afraid he’s running out of time to convince her they should be together, be a family.

In bed, he props himself up on one elbow, letting his fingers run down the length of her spine.

“I was thinking,” he says, his heart hammering in his chest, “maybe we… could get married?”

She sighs quietly and then he knows: it’s over.

“Or… or not.” His voice sounds small. “I guess not.”

They talk on the phone a few times after that. She tells him when to come pick up his stuff. At home, he nurses a tumbler of whiskey as he sifts through the box she gave him. It’s not much: a toothbrush, a coffee mug, the charger to… something.

At the bottom of box, he finds the little giraffe and in an instant, he’s on his feet, furious. He knows he should wait and sober up before calling her but it can’t wait. He tells her there must be a mistake, that the giraffe wound up in his things by accident. She says no. He asks if he can see Oliver, to return it to him. _I just don’t think that’s a good idea_ is the only reason she’ll give him and he hurls the phone at the wall, smashing it.

The next morning, he picks up the shattered remains of the phone, feeling sick as he seals the pieces into an evidence bag. When John gets to work, he asks Rudy if he can salvage the photos and video the phone held. Rudy says he’ll try but he doesn’t look hopeful.

A few hours later, Rudy calls him back to the lab. “He’s quite a cute kid,” Rudy says. “Your nephew? Or, or, or something?”

“Something like that,” John says.

After work that night, he goes home and calls up the files Rudy saved, fingers skimming over the touch-display. He finds only one video and taps it to start.

Oliver, at the top of the tallest slide at the playground. _Watch me, watch me_ , he calls out, then whooshes down the slide. John hears his own laugh coming from behind the lens. _That was awesome, buddy, way to go!_ The video ends with Oliver grinning up at the camera and John taps the little X in the corner of the frame. The display changes: **DELETE? -or- SAVE?** He taps to save.

For weeks, John tries to think of a way to return the giraffe to Oliver. He puts it in the car, thinking maybe he’ll drop by to see Oliver but he’s too afraid of what kind of scene that might cause, especially if that could be the last memory Oliver will have of him. He’s clearing out the car a month later when he finds the giraffe again and tucks it into his jacket pocket, finally deciding he’ll put the little toy in the mail to Oliver. It’s still there when he hangs the jacket in the closet. Spring changes into summer and he doesn’t wear the jacket again until a cold fall night when he heads out to a bar to get a drink and watch a game.

He's looking for his phone when he pulls the tiny giraffe from his pocket, wondering how he could have forgotten it for all this time. Oliver probably doesn’t even remember it now, he thinks. He sets the toy on the bar top and taps it to life, watching it gambol through a tiny pool of spilled beer on the bar.

 _Maybe he doesn’t remember me either_ , John thinks.

“Cute giraffe,” says a woman, taking the stool next to him.

He taps it again to stop it. “Thanks,” he says, turning to look at the woman. Brunette, enormous brown eyes. His heart starts to beat a little faster.

“Your kid’s?” she asks, indicating the toy.

He shakes his head and puts the giraffe back into his pocket. “No,” he says. “Just mine now, I guess.” He extends his hand to the woman. “John,” he says. “John Kennex.”

A smile spreads across her face. “Hi, John,” she says. “I’m Anna.”


End file.
